Method and apparatus for managing communication between participants in a virtual environment

ABSTRACT

A method and apparatus for managing communication between participants in a virtual environment enables the participants to elect to automatically connect with each other via a preferred communication mechanism, manually connect with each other, or choose not to connect with each other. The connection may be point-to-point between two participants or may include multiple participants. Establishment of a connection, or the ability to establish a connection, may be based on the proximity of the participants, or the Avatars representing the participants, in the virtual environment. Once the connection is established, the connection may be managed so that the connection is maintained while the Avatars remain proximate each other and is automatically severed once the Avatars move away from each other. Environmental noise and other audio aspects may be included in the connection to simulate a real-world conversation.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application claims priority to U.S. Provisional Patent ApplicationNo. 60/931,608, filed May 24, 2007, entitled Communication Management ina Virtual Environment, the content of which is hereby incorporatedherein by reference.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

1. Field of the Invention

The present invention relates to virtual environments and, moreparticularly, to a method and apparatus for managing communicationbetween participants in a virtual environment.

2. Description of the Related Art

Virtual environments simulate actual 3-D environments and allow for manyparticipants to interact with each other and with constructs in theenvironment via remotely-located clients. One context in which a virtualenvironment may be used is in connection with gaming, although otheruses for virtual environments are also being developed.

In a virtual environment, an actual or fantasy universe is simulatedwithin a computer processor/memory. Multiple players may participate inthe virtual environment through a computer network, such as a local areanetwork or a wide area network such as the Internet. Each player selectsan “Avatar” which is often a three-dimensional representation of aperson or other object to represent them in the virtual environment.Participants send commands to a virtual environment engine that controlsthe virtual environment to cause their Avatars to move within thevirtual environment. In this way, the participants are able to causetheir Avatars to interact with other Avatars and other objects in thevirtual environment.

A virtual environment often takes the form of a virtual-reality threedimensional map, and may include rooms, outdoor areas, and otherrepresentations of environments commonly experienced in the physicalworld. The virtual environment may also include multiple objects,people, animals, robots, Avatars, robot Avatars, spatial elements, andobjects/environments that allow Avatars to participate in activities.Participants establish a presence in the virtual environment via avirtual environment client on their computer, through which they cancreate or upload an Avatar and then cause the Avatar to “live” withinthe virtual environment.

As the Avatar moves within the virtual environment, the view experiencedby the Avatar changes according to where the Avatar is located withinthe virtual environment. The views may be displayed to the participantso that the participant controlling the Avatar may see what the Avataris seeing. The participant may control the Avatar using conventionalinput devices, such as a computer mouse and keyboard. The inputs aresent to the virtual environment client which forwards the commands toone or more virtual environment servers that are controlling the virtualenvironment and providing a representation of the virtual environment tothe participant via a display associated with the participant'scomputer.

Depending on how the virtual environment is set up, an Avatar may beable to observe the environment and optionally also interact with otherAvatars, modeled objects within the virtual environment, robotic objectswithin the virtual environment, or the environment itself (i.e. anAvatar may be allowed to go for a swim in a lake or river in the virtualenvironment). In these cases, client control input may be permitted tocause changes in the modeled objects, such as moving other objects,opening doors, and so forth, which optionally may then be experienced byother Avatars within the virtual environment.

“Interaction” by an Avatar with another modeled object in a virtualenvironment means that the virtual environment server simulates aninteraction in the modeled environment, in response to receiving clientcontrol input for the Avatar. Interactions by one Avatar with any otherAvatar, object, the environment or automated or robotic Avatars may, insome cases, result in outcomes that may affect or otherwise be observedor experienced by other Avatars, objects, the environment, and automatedor robotic Avatars within the virtual environment.

A virtual environment may be created for the user, but more commonly thevirtual environment may be persistent, in which it continues to existand be supported by the virtual environment server even when the user isnot interacting with the virtual environment. Thus, where there is morethan one user of a virtual environment, the environment may continue toevolve when a user is not logged in, such that the next time the userenters the virtual environment it may be changed from what it lookedlike the previous time.

Virtual environments are commonly used in on-line gaming, such as forexample in online role playing games where users assume the role of acharacter and take control over most of that character's actions. Inaddition to games, virtual environments are also being used to simulatereal life environments to provide an interface for users that willenable on-line education, training, shopping, and other types ofinteractions between groups of users and between businesses and users.

When participants encounter each other in the virtual environment, theymay desire to communicate with each other, much as people would like tocommunicate in the real world. The communication may be a simple wave,nod, or other gesture, a simple hello, or optionally the participantsmay want to converse with each other.

Conventionally, the virtual environments have allowed participants tochat with each other by typing text into a chat bar associated with theview of the virtual environment. Communication management in this typeof environment was relatively easy, since the participants could chooseto ignore typed messages from other participants. As virtualenvironments are integrated with other forms of communication, such asVoice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) based audio communication, thecommunication becomes more intrusive. Additionally, as other forms ofcommunication are integrated with and available through the virtualenvironment, it will become more important to enable participants in avirtual environment to manage how they are able to communicate withother participants and to enable the participant to manage how otherparticipants are able to initiate communication.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

A method and apparatus for managing communication between participantsin a virtual environment enables the participants to elect toautomatically connect with each other via a preferred communicationmechanism, manually connect with each other, or choose not to connectwith each other. The connection may be point-to-point between twoparticipants or may include multiple participants. Establishment of aconnection, or the ability to establish a connection, may be based onthe proximity of the participants, or the Avatars representing theparticipants, in the virtual environment. Once the connection isestablished, the connection may be managed so that the connection ismaintained while the Avatars remain proximate each other and isautomatically severed once the Avatars move away from each other.Environmental noise and other audio aspects may be included in theconnection to simulate a real-world conversation.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

Aspects of the present invention are pointed out with particularity inthe appended claims. The present invention is illustrated by way ofexample in the following drawings in which like references indicatesimilar elements. The following drawings disclose various embodiments ofthe present invention for purposes of illustration only and are notintended to limit the scope of the invention. For purposes of clarity,not every component may be labeled in every figure. In the figures:

FIG. 1 is a functional block diagram of an example system that may beused to manage communication between participants in a virtualenvironment according to an embodiment of the invention;

FIG. 1A is a functional block diagram of another example system that maybe used to manage communication between participants in a virtualenvironment according to an embodiment of the invention;

FIGS. 2-11 are example representations of several connection scenariosbetween Avatars representing participants interacting in a virtualenvironment; and

FIGS. 12-19 are schematic diagrams showing how proximity between Avatarsin a virtual environment may be used to manage communication between theparticipants in the virtual environment according to an embodiment ofthe invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

The following detailed description sets forth numerous specific detailsto provide a thorough understanding of the invention. However, thoseskilled in the art will appreciate that the invention may be practicedwithout these specific details. In other instances, well-known methods,procedures, components, protocols, algorithms, and circuits have notbeen described in detail so as not to obscure the invention.

FIG. 1 shows an example system that may be used to manage thecommunication context of one or more individuals via a virtualenvironment according to an embodiment of the invention. As shown inFIG. 1, a virtual environment 12 is generally created by one or morevirtual environment servers 14. A virtual environment is a threedimensional representation of an environment such as the real world or afantasy world. The virtual environment servers maintain the virtualenvironment and generate views of the virtual environment to bepresented to participants as they navigate their Avatars through thevirtual environment. The virtual environment servers keep track of thelocation of various Avatars and other objects within the virtualenvironment.

A virtual environment may be any type of virtual environment, such as avirtual environment created for an on-line game, a virtual environmentcreated to implement an on-line store, a virtual environment created toimplement an on-line training facility, or for any other purpose.Virtual environments are being created for many reasons, and may bedesigned to enable user interaction to achieve a particular purpose.Example uses of virtual environments include gaming, business, retail,training, social networking, and many other aspects.

A participant (such as user A, B, or C in FIG. 1) can use a computer 16running a virtual environment client 20 and a user interface 22 toaccess the virtual environment server 14 via a data network 18. Theparticipant may see a representation of a portion of thecomputer-generated three dimensional virtual environment on a display 24and input commands via a user input device 26 such as a mouse orkeyboard. The user interface generates the output shown on the displayunder the control of the virtual environment client, and receives theinput from the user and passes the user input to the virtual environmentclient. The virtual environment client passes the user input to thevirtual environment server which causes the user's Avatar or otherobject under the control of the user to execute the desired action inthe virtual environment. In this way the user may control a portion ofthe virtual environment, such as the person's Avatar or other objects incontact with the Avatar, to change the virtual environment for the otherusers of the virtual environment.

In the embodiment shown in FIG. 1, the virtual environment server 14 isaffiliated with a communication server 28 to enable communicationsessions to be selectively established between participants in thevirtual environment. The communication server may interface withcommunication clients 30 on the user computers to enable communicationsessions to be established between participants. According to anembodiment of the invention, the virtual environment server includes acommunication manager 32 that allows participants to manage theestablishment, termination, and other aspects of the communicationsessions while interacting in the virtual environment. Although theembodiment shown in FIG. 1 has a separate communication server 28, inanother embodiment the functions of the communication server may beperformed by the communication manager 32, so that the virtualenvironment server 14 may not only control the establishment ofcommunication sessions between participants, but may also participate inthe establishment of the communication sessions. Alternatively, as shownin FIG. 1A, the functions of the communication server, communicationmanager, and virtual environment server may be implemented as a singleserver 15. Thus, multiple combinations of functionality may be possibleand the invention is not limited to the particular way in which thedifferent functions are allocated between different components of thesystem.

FIG. 2 shows an example Avatar 50 that may be used to represent aparticipant in a virtual environment. As shown in FIG. 2, the Avatar hasa likeness of a human which is common in virtual environments. Accordingto an embodiment of the invention, a partially translucent communicationaura 52 may partially surround the Avatar and be superimposed over thebackground when the participant associated with the Avatar is willing toengage in communication sessions with other participants. For example,the Avatar on the left in FIG. 2 is shown as superimposed over thepartially translucent communication aura 52. The presence of the auraindicates to other participants in the virtual environment that theparticipant is available for audio communication. The Avatar on theright, by contrast, does not have an aura which indicates to the otherparticipants that the participant associated with the Avatar is notavailable for audio communication.

The user may control the aura by setting a preference via their UserInterface 22 to instruct the communication manager 32 whether they arewilling to engage in audio communication sessions with otherparticipants. This preference will be used by the virtual environmentserver to superimpose the aura around the participant's Avatar when theparticipant is available, and to remove the aura when the participant isnot available. Optionally the appearance of the Aura may be specified bythe participant. For example, when a participant creates an character inthe virtual environment the participant may be asked to specify manyfeatures of their character, such as height, weight, gender, age, haircolor, etc. The color and shape of the user's aura may be a feature thatthe user is able to specify when creating their Avatar, or when decidingto implement the communication option described herein, so that thevarious aspects of what the aura look like may be customized by theuser.

The communication manager 32 may enable communication sessions to beestablished between participants manually or automatically. FIG. 3 showsa scenario where two Avatars, who have both specified that connectionshould occur automatically, meet in a virtual environment. As shown inFIG. 3, where both Avatars are set to connect automatically, thedistance between the Avatars may be used to control establishment of theaudio connection between the participants. The use of distance to enableaudio connection simulates the real world, in which people areaccustomed to talking with each other while in the same room, but notwhen separated by a great distance.

Optionally, the distance between Avatars may be supplemented by otherenvironmental context, such as the location of the Avatars within thevirtual environment relative to each other. An example of this is shownin FIG. 6. Specifically, assume that the virtual environment simulates ahouse or other building that has multiple rooms 60A, 60B. In the realworld, people are not generally able to talk to each other through thewalls. Thus, in the virtual environment the Avatars may be preventedfrom establishing an audio connection where the Avatars are on oppositesides of a wall 62 or other barrier in the virtual environment. However,if there is an aperture 64 that would allow voice communication to occurthrough the wall, such as a door, window, or other aperture (See FIG.7), the Avatars may be allowed to communicate with each other. Thus, theenvironmental context may be used in addition to proximity to determinewhether the communication manager should establish a communicationsession between the participants in the virtual environment.

FIGS. 4 and 5 show a process of enabling participants associated withAvatars to communicate manually. As shown in FIG. 4, when an Avatar suchas the Avatar 50B associated with a first participant (initiatingparticipant) meets an Avatar associated with another participant(responding participant), the initiating participant (user B in thisexample) will use their user interface to attempt to communicate withthe responding participant. For example, the initiating participant mayscroll his mouse over the Avatar of the proposed responding participantand right click on the proposed responding participant. Undertaking thissequence of actions or another sequence of events may cause a dialog box54 to be presented to the initiating participant via which theinitiating participant may specify his preference to establish an audiocommunication session with the responding participant.

When the initiating participant indicates that a communication sessionis desired, the responding participant will receive an alert tone or beshown a communication bubble via which the responding participant mayaccept or decline the proposed audio communication session. If theresponding user is set to automatically connect, the responding userwill only be provided with an alert tone. Where the user is set tomanually connect, the communication bubble may also give the respondingparticipant a way to suggest an alternative communication method such astext/instant messaging option. Although not shown, the communicationbubble may also give the responding participant other additional optionssuch as the option of obtaining additional information about theinitiating participant. Although a dialog box and a communication bubblewere used to show example interfaces that may be provided to theparticipants, other types of interfaces may be used as well depending onthe preferences of the owner running the virtual environment.

If a communication session is declined, the Avatars may continue theiractivities in the virtual environment as before. However, where theAvatars are both set to automatically connect or where the participantsagree to establish a connection, the communication manager and/or thecommunication server will cause a communication channel to be set upbetween the initiating and responding participants.

Once a communication channel has been established, it may be desirableto allow other participants in the virtual environment know that the twoparticipants are communicating. Thus, as shown in FIG. 8, once thecommunication session has been established the virtual environmentserver may be notified so that the virtual environment server may modifythe representation of the Avatars to convey to the other participants inthe virtual environment that a conversation is occurring. In the exampleshown in FIG. 8, this is represented by extending the partiallytranslucent communication aura 52 to partially surround both Avatarsthat are associated with the communication session. By unifying the auraaround both Avatars other participants in the virtual environment areable to tell that a conversation is occurring.

During a conversation, either participant may decide that theconversation should be a private conversation to avoid interruption byother participants. If the conversation is private it may be representeddifferently to the other participants, for example as shown in FIG. 9.Setting the conversation to private may cause the Avatars may beteleported to a private location/room in the virtual environment whereother users can't interrupt them. In FIG. 9, this is represented bysuperimposing a bubble 64 on each of the Avatars associated with thecommunication session, and interconnecting the bubbles 64 via a tube 66to indicate that the two Avatars are engaged in a conversation.

Either participant may terminate a communication session to cause thevisual representation of the Avatars to revert back to normal (see e.g.FIG. 3). Where the participants have set their Avatars to automaticallyconnect, and one of the participants has terminated the communicationsession, the virtual environment server may impose additionalrestrictions on establishment of a connection between the twoparticipants. For example, assume that Avatars 50A and 50B are withinthe auto-connect distance, and that the participant associated withAvatar 50A has just disconnected a previous connection. Since theAvatars are technically within the auto-connect distance and both areset to automatically connect, without the additional restriction thevirtual environment server may attempt to re-establish the connection.Thus, for example, where a connection is disconnected the virtualenvironment server may require the Avatars to move away from each otherbeyond the disconnect distance and then re-approach each other beforeallowing a new connection to be established. Alternatively, the virtualenvironment server may impose a time restriction to prevent a newconnection from being established between the two users, for example forseveral seconds. Still alternatively, the virtual environment server maydisable the auto-connect mechanism for the particular Avatars that werepreviously associated with a communication session to require thoseAvatars to connect manually with each other for a period of time. Othermethods of preventing unintended automatic reconnect may be implementedas well.

There may be times where a third party may want to join an on-goingconversation. An example of this is shown in FIG. 10. Where theparticipants are all set to automatically connect and automaticallyallow others to connect, the third participant may join in theconversation. This may be represented to other participants in thevirtual environment by showing the aura to also include the third Avataras shown in FIG. 11.

When the third participant seeks to join an existing conversation, thethird participant may indicate that desire to the virtual environmentserver (e.g. by scrolling over and right clicking on the conversationaura). Optionally, the third participant may be provided with a dialog,such as the dialog box 68 shown in FIG. 10, to enable the thirdparticipant to specify how he would like to join the conversation. Forexample, the third participant may ask to join the on-goingconversation, automatically join the existing conversation, send one ormore of the participants an Instant Message, or request a privateconversation with one of the users. Other options may be available aswell.

If the third participant is accepted into the conversation, the existingaudio channel is moved to a conference bridge with all three parties.The visual representation of the conversation (aura) is also adjusted toinclude the Avatar associated with the third participant so that otherparticipants in the virtual environment know that a group conversationis occurring. Other users may join the conversation unless theconversation is set to private by one or more of the participants.

In a multi-party conversation, one user may be allowed to evict anotheruser from the conversation. Alternatively, to prevent one person fromdominating and controlling the membership in the conversation, a votingprocess may be required such that two or more, a majority, or unanimitymay be required to evict a participant from a conversation. Once themulti-party conversation has reduced in size such that there are onlytwo remaining participants, then the conference may be moved from theconference bridge to a two-way communication channel.

FIGS. 12-18 show aspects of how distance may be used, at least in part,to establish and disconnect communications sessions between participantsin a virtual environment. FIG. 12 shows a first user (Avatar 1=A1)located in a virtual environment. A connect distance R1 may beestablished for the Avatar A1 such that another Avatar will need to bewithin distance R1 of the first Avatar to establish a connection. In theexample shown in FIG. 12, Avatar A2 is within R1 of Avatar A1, and thusAvatars A1 and A2 may establish a connection. Where they are set toautomatically connect, the connection will be established automatically.Where they are set to manually connect, they may need to choose toestablish the session with each other. Although not shown, differentradii R1-a and R1-m may be used for establishment of a connectionautomatically and manually.

Once a connection is established, the participants may continue talkingon the connection while their Avatars are proximate each other. To allowsome flexibility on how close the Avatars are required to be with eachother, a disconnect distance may be specified such that the connectionwill automatically be terminated once the Avatars move away from eachother. This is shown in FIG. 12 as radius R2. Note, in this regard, thatradius R2 is somewhat larger than radius R1 to provide hysteresis to theconnection. In FIG. 12, if Avatars A3 and A2 have established acommunication session, then Avatars A3 and A2 will continue to be ableto talk on the connection even though they are further apart than theconnection distance, since the distance between the two Avatars has notyet exceeded the disconnect distance R2. Avatar A4, in FIG. 12, wouldnot be allowed to engage in a communication session with Avatar A1,however, since Avatar A4 is outside both the connect and disconnectdistances.

FIG. 13 shows a possible way of calculating connect and disconnectdistances where there are multiple parties. As shown in FIG. 13, wherethere are multiple parties a logical center of the communication session70 may be established. The logical center of the communication sessionmay be the center of mass of the various participants, and theconnect/disconnect distances may be calculated from that point ratherthan being calculated from the position of any one of the participants.Although FIG. 13 shows the formation of a logical center of mass of thecommunication system between three parties, this may also be extended toa situation where there are only two parties. An example of this isshown in FIG. 16. In a two party conversation, may the connect distanceand disconnect distance may be measured as the distance between theparties or, optionally, may be measured from the center of mass of theconversation.

Referring again to FIG. 13, the logical center may be thought of as avirtual location of a conference bridge between the participants. As theusers move relative to each other, the logical center of the conferencebridge will move as well to stay at the center of mass of the variousparticipants to the communication session. In this way the logicalcenter will respond to the movements of the Avatars and track theparticipants. The logical center may be represented in the virtualenvironment by a dot or other indicia.

When a user moves more than the disconnect distance away from thelogical center of the conversation, the user will be disconnected fromthe communication session. This is shown in FIG. 14. Specifically, inFIG. 14 Avatar A4 is located initially at time T1 within the disconnectdistance from the logical center. At time T2, Avatar A4 has movedoutside of the disconnect distance thus causing the participantassociated with Avatar A4 to be disconnected from the communicationsession.

Similarly, if a participant wants to join a communication session, theparticipant may move their Avatar to get within the connection distanceof the logical center of the communication session, e.g. as shown inFIG. 15. Once the Avatar A5 is within the connect distance of thelogical center, the Avatar A5 may automatically or manually join theconversation. Since the Avatar A5 is not part of the communicationsession at time T1, movement of the Avatar A5 toward the conversationwill not cause the logical center to move. However, at time T2 once theAvatar A5 has joined the conversation, the location of Avatar A5 willalso be used to calculate the logical center of the conversation.

FIG. 16 shows a two person conversation in which a center of mass of theconversation is used to calculate the connect and disconnect distances.The connect and disconnect distances may be calculated for the partiesto the conversation, and also for other persons seeking to join theconversation. For example, in FIG. 16, it will be assumed that aconversation is occurring between Avatars A1 and A2. A third Avatar, A3,would like to join the conversation. In one embodiment, the third Avatarmay be required to get within a connect distance of the center of massof the conversation. Alternatively, in another embodiment, the thirdAvatar may seek to join the conversation if he is within a connectdistance of either one or both of the participants. Thus, the system mayoptionally calculate a center of mass between any set of two or moreparticipants to a conversation and use the center of mass to determinewhether to enable another participant to join into the conversation.

The connect distance may change for a given conversation as the numberof participants increase. For example, it may be difficult to keep alarger number of Avatars within the disconnect distance than it is tokeep two or three people together. Accordingly, the connect/disconnectdistance may increase as the number of participants in the conversationgrows. Conversely, it may be desirable to reduce the connect distancewhere there are a large number of people (Avatars) gathered together ina compact manner. For example, if there is a gathering of Avatars, smallgroups of Avatars may want to have private conversations much like theywould at a real-world party. In this instance the connect distance maybe set to be rather small to prevent the conversation from being joinedby many other Avatars unintentionally. Thus, the connect and disconnectdistance may be adjusted based on how populated the virtual environmentis, the number of participants, and optionally other factors that mayaffect how participants would desire to talk with each other.

FIGS. 17-18 show how the logical center of the conversation moves asparticipants to the conversation move relative to each other. As shownin FIG. 17, assume initially at time T1 that three Avatars A1-A3 areengaged in a communication session. The logical center of thecommunication session will be calculated at the center of mass of thethree Avatars. FIG. 18 shows the center of mass of the conversation attime T2. As shown in FIG. 18, as Avatars A2 and A3 move to the left, thecenter of Mass of the conversation will likewise move to the left.However, since Avatar A1 has not moved, the center of mass of theconversation will move less than the individual movements of either ofthe Avatars A2, A3.

Where movement of the logical center of the conversation causes anAvatar to be outside the disconnect distance, that Avatar may bedisconnected from the conversation.

It may be desirable to include background noise in a virtualenvironment. For example, it may be desirable to include music, crowdnoise, noise sources such as the sound of a waterfall or fountain, orother background noise source. FIG. 19 shows an example where anenvironmental audio source has been included in the virtual environment.The environmental audio may be streamed to each of the participants asthe participants engage in the virtual environment. The environmentalaudio may also be overlayed onto the communication session having adirection which is associated with the direction of the environmentalnoise source to the logical center of the conversation. The virtualrelative position of each source contribution can be tracked andpositioned for a given user, for example using a Head Related TransferFunction (HRTF). For example, if Avatar A1 is to the front left relativeto Avatar A2, audio from Avatar A1 will be played to Avatar A2 as ifcoming from the front left.

Optionally, one or more of the participants may have the option ofturning off the background noise to make it easier for that participantto hear the conversation. The background noise may be turned off on aparticipant-by-participant basis, or for the communication session as awhole.

The functions described above may be implemented as one or more sets ofprogram instructions that are stored in a computer readable memorywithin the network element(s) and executed on one or more processorswithin the network element(s). However, it will be apparent to a skilledartisan that all logic described herein can be embodied using discretecomponents, integrated circuitry such as an Application SpecificIntegrated Circuit (ASIC), programmable logic used in conjunction with aprogrammable logic device such as a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA)or microprocessor, a state machine, or any other device including anycombination thereof. Programmable logic can be fixed temporarily orpermanently in a tangible medium such as a read-only memory chip, acomputer memory, a disk, or other storage medium. All such embodimentsare intended to fall within the scope of the present invention.

It should be understood that various changes and modifications of theembodiments shown in the drawings and described in the specification maybe made within the spirit and scope of the present invention.Accordingly, it is intended that all matter contained in the abovedescription and shown in the accompanying drawings be interpreted in anillustrative and not in a limiting sense. The invention is limited onlyas defined in the following claims and the equivalents thereto.

1. A method for managing communication between at least two participantsin a virtual environment, the method comprising the steps of: displayinga visible representation of a first Avatar representing a first of theat least two participants in the virtual environment to a second of theat least two participants in the virtual environment; displaying avisible representation of a second Avatar representing the second of theat least two participants in the virtual environment to the first of theat least two participants in the virtual environment; while continuingto display the first Avatar, allowing the first of the at least twoparticipants to visually indicate, via an indicator visible to thesecond of the at least two participants and associated with the firstavatar, whether the first of the at least two participants is availableto participate in audio communication sessions or not available toparticipate in audio communication sessions; while continuing to displaythe second Avatar, allowing the second of the at least two participantsto visually indicate, via an indicator visible to the first of the atleast two participants and associated with the second avatar, whetherthe second of the at least two participants is available to participatein audio communication sessions or not available to participate in audiocommunication sessions; determining a proximate distance between thefirst and second Avatars representing the at least two participants inthe virtual environment; enabling an audio communication session to beestablished between the at least two participants when the proximatedistance between the first and second Avatars representing the at leasttwo participants is less than or equal to a connect distance and boththe first and second of the at least two participants have visuallyindicated via the indicators associated with the Avatars that they areavailable to participate in audio communication sessions.
 2. The methodfor managing communication between at least two participants in avirtual environment of claim 1, further comprising determining aconnection preference status of each of the at least two participants,each connection preference status indicating whether the particularparticipant would like to automatically connect with other participants,manually connect with other participants, or not connect with otherparticipants.
 3. The method for managing communication between at leasttwo participants in a virtual environment of claim 2, wherein the stepof enabling an audio communication session to be established occursautomatically if a connection preference status of a first of theparticipants has been set to automatically connect with otherparticipants and a connection preference status of a second of theparticipants has also been set to automatically connect with otherparticipants, and the proximate distance between the Avatarsrepresenting the first and second participants is less than or equal tothe connect distance.
 4. The method for managing communication betweenat least two participants in a virtual environment of claim 2, wherein,if the first participant has set its connection preference status tomanually connect with other participants, then the step of enabling anaudio communication session to be established with the first participantfurther comprises the step of presenting the first participant with anoption to connect to the second participant when the proximate distancebetween the Avatar representing the first participant and the Avatarrepresenting the second participant is less than or equal to the connectdistance.
 5. The method for managing communication between at least twoparticipants in a virtual environment of claim 4, wherein the step ofpresenting the first participant with the option to connect to thesecond participant comprises providing the first participant with anindication of an identity of the second participant.
 6. The method formanaging communication between at least two participants in a virtualenvironment of claim 1, wherein the connect distance is modified basedon the environmental context of the Avatars.
 7. The method for managingcommunication between at least two participants in a virtual environmentof claim 6, wherein participants will not be allowed to establish anaudio connection whether their Avatars are separated by a barrier in thevirtual environment regardless of whether the proximate distance betweenthe Avatars is less than or equal to the connect distance.
 8. The methodfor managing communication between at least two participants in avirtual environment of claim 7, wherein the participants will be allowedto establish an audio connection where there is a break in the barrierthat will allow audio information to be passed between the Avatarsacross the barrier.
 9. The method for managing communication between atleast two participants in a virtual environment of claim 1, wherein if aparticipant has elected to be available to participate in audiocommunication sessions, the indicator visible to the other participantscomprises an alteration of an appearance of the Avatar associated withthat participant.
 10. The method for managing communication between atleast two participants in a virtual environment of claim 9, wherein thealteration of the appearance of the Avatar comprises adding a partiallytranslucent aura to at least partially surround the Avatar.
 11. Themethod for managing communication between at least two participants in avirtual environment of claim 1, wherein once an audio communicationsession has been established between at least two participants, themethod further comprising the step of altering an appearance of theAvatars associated with the participants to the audio communicationsession.
 12. The method for managing communication between at least twoparticipants in a virtual environment of claim 11, wherein once theaudio communication session has been established between at least twoparticipants, the method further comprising the step of enabling atleast one of the participants to deem the audio communication sessionprivate to prevent third parties from joining the audio communicationsession.
 13. The method for managing communication between at least twoparticipants in a virtual environment of claim 1, further comprisingadding environmental background noise to an audio communication sessiononce the audio communication session has been established.
 14. Themethod for managing communication between at least two participants in avirtual environment of claim 1, wherein the background noise isoverlayed onto the audio communication session as if it is coming from adirection, the direction being determined by assessing a location of asound source in the virtual environment relative to the Avatars in thevirtual environment.
 15. The method for managing communication betweenat least two participants in a virtual environment of claim 1, whereinthe audio communication session further comprises video information aswell as audio information.